Australia might just pay for safety option

For all the talk of open-top buses and OBEs, long-suffering England fans have always found it difficult to visualise Michael Vaughan and the Ashes urn in close proximity. That leap of faith became a chasm yesterday afternoon, and not just for the spectators. As Australia's openers forged ahead, one could almost hear the fielders' knees knocking together like oversized windchimes.

But have faith, Ashes dreamers. Stranger things have happened than another England revival. At times, yesterday's play resembled the theatre of the absurd. Has anyone ever witnessed a capacity crowd cheering the arrival of the covers before? Or Justin Langer, usually Wise to Matthew Hayden's Morecambe, outscoring his partner by a factor of two to one? Or even Paul Collingwood unleashing an 83mph delivery that beat both batsman and first slip for pace?

Most importantly, has anyone seen an Australian team going off for bad light just when their collective foot was poised above the opposition's jugular? It is now up to Ricky Ponting and his players to make this quixotic decision look smart. Because if Australia fall just short on the final day, it could end up right next to "bowling first at Edgbaston" in the Guinness Book of Sporting Blunders.

If Glenn McGrath can defy two detached ankle ligaments to take five wickets at Old Trafford, surely Langer and Hayden can risk a few clunks on the helmet in order to press Australia's case. Yes, the ball might have swung under heavy cloud; yes, they might have lost one of Ashley Giles's arm balls in the flight. But then moles could suddenly burrow through the surface of the pitch, or frogs rain down from the sky.

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Australia became world champions not by asking "What could possibly go wrong?" but by backing themselves to do everything right, come rain or shine. Under pressure in this series, they have reverted to tactics that used to be unthinkable: boundary-riding fielders, nightwatchmen, and now batsmen taking the light. It wouldn't have happened under Steve Waugh.

How badly England needed that weather break, because yesterday was shaping up as their worst day of the series since Lord's. Enfeebled by the absence of Simon Jones, paralysed by the scale of the prize, their performance somehow managed to be agitated and flat at the same time.

The concept of pressure has become a sporting cliche, especially now that Michael Vaughan uses the P-word in every interview he gives. But it is a vital factor nonetheless. The past three Tests have seen Australia shrink under the pressure of England's challenge, just as a scuba diver's lungs contract to a fraction of their normal size at great depths. But the simplicity of their current task, combined with England's anxiety, has suddenly released the valve.

Without the weather to complicate their thinking, Australia would now be looking at the most straightforward of gameplans. Bat big, bat long, and stick England back in on a worn, turning wicket. Thankfully for Vaughan, other factors have entered the equation, among them the unknowable quandary of "What if we had stayed out there?"

Perhaps Australia will prove big enough to put such questions out of their minds. But England failed a similar test at Headingley two years ago. In that match it was Mark Butcher and Marcus Trescothick who accepted the light, halfway through an evening session that had seen them pummel South Africa's attack. The upshot was that England went down to a 191-run defeat, and Vaughan wrote an angry column demanding more hunger from his players.

Australia, clearly, are not lacking in hunger here. Hayden showed it when he volunteered to step down from his usual Schwarzenegger-style role as musclebound leading man. Yesterday, he was more like Langer's bodyguard, offering discreet back-up while the little fellow went about his work. And for a player with a record as glorious as his, that was quite some climbdown. England should feel honoured, in a way, by Hayden's change of tack. It is a belated admission that he cannot dismantle their attack as he has so many others over the years.

But the fear must be that Australia's shift to a lower gear will prove decisive, especially after England had revved too high - not for the first time in the series - and burned out the engine. Without more help from the weather, and a steadier second innings, Vaughan may never get his hands on that pesky urn.